Merciless Charity: A Charity Styles Novel (Caribbean Thriller Series Book 1) (13 page)

Isabella studied Charity’s face a moment through dark brown eyes. She’d found one of Charity’s hair ties, and her thick, wavy black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Isabella’s eyes sparkled in the moonlight, and she seemed to come to some conclusion.

“You are not running from something,” Isabella said. “You are running after someone. A man.” She didn’t phrase it as a question, but a simple statement of fact.

Charity didn’t reply, simply watched the woman watching her. Finally, Isabella whispered, “My mother once had the charm. She lost it to old age, but she passed it on to me. You will kill this man you seek and many others. I know this to be a good thing. One day, you will return to America, but not for some time. When you do arrive there, you will find me and Roberto, but Mama and Papa will have gone home to be with Jesus by then. However, they will die as free people in a free land. I will tell no one of these things, only that which you have told me to say.”

Without another word, Isabella rose and went to the cabin, climbing down the ladder, without looking back.
Charm?
Charity thought. The Caribbean islands are full of tales of shamans and mystics, though she’d never met one. Charity knew there was nothing on board that pointed to her real identity, or her objective and mission.
Could this woman be the real thing?

An hour later, while Charity was still puzzling over what Isabella had told her, the old man climbed quickly and silently up the ladder. He stood on the tilted deck and turned his face toward the wind, looking up at the sails and then out beyond the bow at the sea, his silver hair blowing back from his forehead.

He has to be in his sixties, at least
, Charity thought. He still carried himself like a much younger man, though. Judging from the way he moved with the boat, it was obvious he was no stranger to the sea.

Finally, he turned around, and he was smiling. In very good English he said, “With your permission,
Capit
á
n
, I will inspect the rigging for you.”

Charity returned his smile and nodded. Alonzo turned and, without the aid of either the rail or the handholds along the side of the cabin, he walked forward, along the port side. With a touch from an experienced hand, he tested the standing rigging for tautness. Moments later, he returned on the starboard side to the cockpit and sat down beside Charity.

“Your
barca
is well and good,” he reported. “And quite a beautiful vessel.” The sparkle in his eyes and the smile on his face told Charity what he wanted most just now.

“Would you like to take the helm?” she asked, standing.

“I would like that very much,” he replied and slid over behind the helm. He glanced down at the displays on the screens below the pedestal with its many switches. Then his eyes fell on the antique compass, mounted in its bezel on top of the pedestal. He glanced up at the stars that filled the night sky, his eyes brimming slightly. “We are on course for America.”

Charity reached past his knee, found the switch for the autopilot and turned it off. “
Wind Dancer
is now under your full control, Alonzo.”

The old man lovingly took the wheel in his twisted fingers. Charity noticed that they weren’t so much contorted by arthritis, or years of pulling fishing nets. His fingers fit the wheel perfectly.

Glancing over at Charity, his smile broadened. “I am a sailor. But the government sent me to the fields, when I grew to be too old, to cut the sugarcane.”

“Age does not make a man one thing or another,” she said. “The salt water still courses through your veins. I can see that.”

Alonzo looked up at the sails, the main luffing slightly. Charity scooted over closer and showed him the three switches that operated the sheet winches. “Foresail is the top one. The jib is below that, and the main below the jib. Try it.”

Reaching down, Alonzo toggled the main sheet winch for a second, and the mainsail luffed even more. Toggling the switch the other way, he bent the boom inward a few inches until the snapping ceased.

“It is much easier than the winch handles,” Alonzo said.

“You can easily single-hand the
Dancer
in a whole gale,” Charity said.

Alonzo checked the compass and made a slight adjustment to the wheel. “Yes, I believe I could.”

“When did you first take to the sea, Alonzo?”

“As a boy, not much older than Roberto. My father was a fisherman. He sailed a working sloop designed by the same man who designed this one. The name? It is very appropriate. She dances to a quick and happy tune.”

“Thank you,” Charity said. “I think so, as well.”

“I worked for my father until I was old enough to buy my own boat. It was not as fine as his, and many leagues distant from this fine boat. But it was mine. However, I did not like the fishing so much.”

“What did you do?”

Alonzo grinned. “Do you know that I am eighty-three years old? It is true. Rosina is my second wife. I buried my first wife of thirty years, long ago. We had two strapping sons. All lost to a hurricane, while I was at sea. Rosina is much younger than I. We have been married now for over thirty years. Isabella is my only child left, and Roberto my only heir.”

He said this as if it was of great importance, though judging from the pitiful condition of their belongings, Roberto wouldn’t be inheriting much.

“I once owned property,” Alonzo said, continuing his story, as if reading Charity’s mind. “A fine plantation house on a hill, overlooking Arroyos de Mantua, not far from the sea. The house is gone now, lost to the same tempest that took my first family. But the land is still there. When the bearded one is gone, my grandson can claim it as the rightful owner.”

“It’s worth a lot? This land?”

“Dirt is dirt,” he said. Then, with a mischievous grin and a wink, he added, “But a man can put something under that dirt to make the land much more valuable.”

“If you didn’t fish when you were a young man, what did you do with this boat of yours?” Charity asked. She was enchanted with old Alonzo’s melodious voice and his tales from long ago. She would never have guessed him to be in his eighties.

“I was born into America’s Prohibition,” Alonzo continued. “I’ve been to America many times since then. I was only six years old the first time I made the crossing with my father. We carried rum to Cayo Hueso. Many still called it that, back then.

“I learned something very valuable then. If something is illegal in America, it will be in high demand. As a young man with his own boat, I made the crossing many, many times. Twice a week, for many years. I carried people mostly, but deep in the bilge, I carried marijuana.”

“You were a smuggler?” Charity asked, grinning with delight.

“A very good smuggler,” he replied. “The son of a sailor and smuggler. For many years, I rode on the wind that my forefathers, for several generations before me, had also harnessed. Everything I took to America, or brought back, I owned. I didn’t transport freight for other people.”

“Let me get this straight, Alonzo. You bought marijuana in Cuba and smuggled it into the United States?”

“No,” he replied. “I grew it myself and paid only pennies for the seed. I made enough money in ten years to last two lifetimes.”

Charity couldn’t help but laugh. Then a thought occurred to her. “You bought the plantation with your smuggling money?”

“Yes, I bought two hundred and forty acres. Very good tobacco land it was. With a fine plantation home and a number of curing barns for the tobacco. I became a
torcedoro
, a cigar roller. My sons and I made some of the finest cigars in the world. This was the time just before the bearded one. After the
revoluci
ó
n
, my land, as well as most every other man’s land, was taken by the government. The people were forced to do this or that, whatever the government determined was best. I was sent back to the sea to fish. Did I tell you I didn’t like the fishing so much?”

Charity laughed again. “Yes, Alonzo, you did. What happened to your tobacco plantation?”

“The government seized it. The fine home was turned into a business. The
torcedoros
working for us were forced to take a much lower wage and the cigars weren’t as good as they once were. My family was allowed to continue living there, as overseers, but the government said I would fish. I was at sea when the storm took my home and family.”

Alonzo looked out over the dark sea for a moment, as if remembering his first wife and their sons. “Now, they say I am too old to fish, or even to work the cane fields. So, the government cast me and Rosina aside and we could no longer afford the tiny house they put us in. Isabella worked in an office, her husband an officer in the navy. They lived much better than our little house, so they took us in. Roberto, the father, was killed just a year ago.”

Alonzo let out a great sigh. “The government told Isabella she had to move to another house after that. And that she could not take me and Rosina with her. Her new house was not far from Guadiana Bay. It was there that I built our boat, while Rosina hid with friends in Playa Colorada. Two nights after I finished building it, we met you, Gabriela.”

“Your daughter risked everything?” Charity asked in amazement. “She gave up her job? To protect you and her mother and risk everything to bring you to America.”

“
S
í,” Alonzo replied, with a shrug. “It is what family does. It is not forever. The bearded one grows old. Faster than I do. He has grown fat on the people’s
tete
. He is soft and will not last much longer. When he is gone, Isabella can bring Roberto back to his homeland to reclaim his birthright. He will know where to dig a hole and he will live a life of luxury, taking care of his mother, as she has done for me and my lovely Rosina.” Then again, with the same mischievous grin and another wink he asked, “Did you know she is much younger than me?”

Charity laughed again. The laughing felt good. It was something she hadn’t done much of in the last few years.

“Alonzo, you are a dog.”

“
S
í
, muchacha
, I am the dog. When Rosina is gone, I may charm
you
out of
your
pants.”

Charity grinned at the old pervert and checked her watch. It was still three hours until daylight.

“Go,
Preciosa
. Get rested. I was sleeping for many hours before you wrecked my little
barca
. I will sail this fine boat on this course until you awaken.”

Charity had no qualms about trusting her boat to the old man. He’d probably made this crossing more times than she’d gone grocery shopping.

“
Buenas noches
, Alonzo,” Charity said, rising and patting the weathered hand on the wheel.

S
ix hours later, Charity awoke. The light streaming through the portholes on the starboard side told her it was already daylight. Sitting up quickly, she bumped her shoulder on the low underside of the side deck. Rising and rubbing her shoulder, she looked around the salon.

The quarter berth on the other side had been rearranged back to a couch. Glancing forward, Charity saw that the small vee-berth was made up and the cabin empty.

Charity climbed quickly up the ladder to the cockpit. Alonzo and his family were all sitting in the early-morning sun, little Roberto on his grandfather’s lap, helping steer
Wind Dancer
.

“Good morning,
Preciosa
,” Alonzo said. “It is such a fine morning for the sailing. You looked so peaceful in sleep, I did not wish to disturb you.”

Sitting down on the other side of the helm, Charity glanced at the electronics. The small radar and chart plotter screens were turned off, as was the autopilot. She switched on the two screens and, according to the plotter, they’d traveled almost eighty miles and were no more than a quarter mile off the course she’d plotted the night before.